Fabulous Pharmacy of Mushrooms. . . Oh My!

Toadstools!  Poisonous mushrooms! That is my first memory of mushrooms. You could die from them, and my parents made sure to make me afraid of the ones growing in our yard. Certainly those beautiful red ones with polka dots are friendly? No…..they are quite deadly! When I owned my own home, all I knew to do was to make sure that if any mushrooms popped up over night, I would carefully yank them from the lawn, throw them away in a plastic bag, and wash my hands well. A few years ago, when our older Great Dane was a tiny puppy, I had gone shopping when I got a call from my husband.

“I think Valentina has found a mushroom in the yard and eaten it.  She vomited about four times, but her eyes still look bloodshot, and she’s acting funny."

I went right home, found mushroom pieces in her outside cushion, and we took her to the vet right away. Valentina had a tube put down her throat and a bunch of charcoal put into her stomach to help absorb any remaining poisons. (By the way, most Great Danes always look like they have saggy, slightly bloodshot eyes, so that didn’t go away.) I searched the yard that season and several seasons to follow, making sure there were no more poisonous mushrooms in the yard.

I can’t remember when I didn’t use mushrooms in my cooking – the nonpoisonous kind. When I began cooking, I started with white button mushrooms, and soon abandoned them for the fuller flavor of cremini, baby bellas, and portobellas. I can’t remember when I didn’t have a bottle of maitake, shitake, reishi mixture in capsules among my arsenal of natural supplements. But, it wasn’t until in the late 90’s that I came face-to-face with actual, whole, dried medicinal mushrooms. My husband-to-be and I were walking the streets of Chinatown, San Francisco, after a pleasant meal, and I noticed a Chinese pharmacy. I was a frequent customer of the Phoenix area Asian grocery stores that had a “pharmacy counter” where I could buy Quan Luong oil among other remedies. [Another story: one of my Asian ESL students offered a bit of her oil that she always kept handy in her purse to help alleviate my migraine. This oil, among other Asian remedies, soon became a regular in my medicine cabinet.] We stopped in the San Francisco Chinese Pharmacy. There was another customer before me, and I watched in wonder at the lady behind the counter as she read the prescription and proceeded to search the many shelves that lined the pharmacy’s walls, and weigh an assortment of dried materials, one by one, according to the paper which she held in her hand. Some of the ingredients were long, undulating, gracile, pointed fingers precariously balanced upon the scale, some of them indescribable, paper-thin, tenuous, filmy “wings” of dried materials, and just a few of them were recognizable to me as mushrooms. I had no idea as to which specific powers of remedy these strange-looking materials possessed, but I did sense that I was in the presence of something very powerful. Years later, when we lived in Placerville, California, I would begin to expand my culinary use of mushrooms. Raley’s, a nearby grocery store, offered a plastic-film covered Styrofoam container of a variety of mushrooms which I would frequently buy. My husband had become fascinated with the delicious flavors of those mushrooms that were prepared as a simple sauté with a little olive oil and maybe a little salt.

Fast forward almost ten years: Now, in case I cannot find the fresh mushrooms at Natural Grocer or Whole Foods or elsewhere in Austin, I have a stash of dried mushrooms that I rehydrate and use in a great deal of recipes: tofu scramble, soups, sautés – just about everything savory. My favorites are the Dried Forest Blend Mushrooms from D’Allesandro (DallesandroGourmet.com, Also at Amazon.com) and the Dried Mushrooms Chef’s Blend from lifegourmetshop.com, (also at Amazon.com). With a mixture of these two, I have: Shitake, Morel, Porcini, Bolete, Chantarelle, Oyster, and Woodear mushrooms. At this point, I’m only into buying and cooking mushrooms. (My husband says, “And I’m into eating them.”) I haven’t yet ventured into foraging for them or growing them.

I always have a supply of medicinal mushroom capsules: maitake, shitake, reishi, chaga, etc. There has been research done to validate the effectiveness of medicinal mushrooms. Some substances in mushrooms have been credited with anti-tumor and antibiotic qualities. Maitake is being researched for its power over HIV. Some of its substances appear to help patients that have undergone radiation, both to soothe away the bad effects and also to prolong life. Other mushroom substances are anticoagulant, while others lower cholesterol. “Every year researchers isolate at least 10 additional antibiotics from mushrooms. This is because mushrooms must compete against bacteria, and they are equipped with biological weapons to survive in that environment. This is perhaps the best reason for adding not one but many varieties of mushrooms to your diet. You may be effectively arming yourself against infections in the most natural way possible. Penicillin was derived, after all, from a fungus.” (Jack Czarnecki, A Cook’s Book of Mushrooms). In  a book I’ve just purchased, by Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, we learn that they may be of great use in saving our ailing world. Stamets’ book has beautiful photographs. Another book which I have just purchased is, The Fungal Pharmacy: The Complete Guide to Medicinal Mushrooms and Lichens of North America, by Robert Rogers, RH (AHG). This book also has excellent photographs, including one of corn fungus, ustilago crameri, known as “huitlacoche” in Mexico. It is quite popular in Mexico. And, it is very popular with my husband! I think we’re becoming true “mycophiles.”

There is a great deal of information about mushrooms on the internet. One need only do a search for “medicinal mushrooms,” or “gourmet mushrooms” or “mushroom recipes”.  One of the many sites that are very informative is ChagaHQ.com. Among all the information, including medicinal qualities, history, and even recipes, for example: “Medicinal Mushrooms: Our Top Seven to Try,” (ChagaHQ.com/medicinal-mushrooms-list/). Also check out Paul Stamets on YouTube.com, including, " TEDMED talk from 2011" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXHDoROh2hA ), and "How Mushrooms Can Save Us From Ourselves", (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9zzXuZ2h4) and many more. 6 ways mushrooms can save the world (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY)

Many Americans still suffer from “mycophobia”, or fear of mushrooms. But the Asians, and Europeans, as well as other world cultures have long revered mushrooms for their curative powers and the wonderful ways in which they can enrich and heal our lives, as well as heal our planet. Already, with study of only a few of the 38,000 mushroom species, we have begun to discover their amazing qualities. They are truly Nature’s Pharmacy.